


A Friend In Need

by AuthorToBeNamedLater



Series: Keeping Up With The Raptors [8]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Sports, Brain Injury, Concussions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Head Injury, Hockey, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, NHL, National Hockey League, Raptors, Seattle, Sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:49:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorToBeNamedLater/pseuds/AuthorToBeNamedLater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark has a concussion, but he also has the best team captain ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Friend In Need

**Author's Note:**

> Continuation of the arc that started in Man Down (you will need to read that first or this won't make much sense). It seems I have a thing for beleaguered rookies.

Mark Shearer had barely moved for 10 days.

The first few days after the concussion had been some of the worst of his life. St. Joseph's Auxiliary had kept Mark for two days, during which time he was dizzy, his stomach upset even with anti-nausea medication, he'd been confused and disoriented, and his head pounded like a jackhammer.

Now, back at his Aunt Kim's house in Seattle, Mark's symptoms had improved. But he still didn't feel good. He couldn't watch TV, couldn't read, couldn't use a computer. He could listen to the radio with the volume turned down, but that got old after awhile. Mark no longer felt sick, but he was rarely hungry and if his aunt weren't around to force food into him once or twice a day, he'd probably never eat. He still got confused upon waking—sometimes it took a few minutes to figure out if he was in Seattle, Edmonton or Halifax. Talking drained his energy in a hurry. An outing to the neurologist today had Mark wiped out, lying in his bed sliding between waking and sleeping. He could feel a headache coming on.

And headaches weren't the worst of it. Every athlete knew a negative mental outlook could ruin his game faster than any injury. But with little else to occupy his concussion-addled mind, Mark spent a disproportionate amount of time worrying. He knew it wasn't healthy, but he didn't know how to stop. What else was he going to think about?

_Lots of guys come back after concussions. But what if I don't? What if I end up like Marc Savard or Derek Boogaard? What if--_

The door hinges creaked and Mark cringed. “Mark? Sweetie? Are you awake?” His Aunt Kim's voice came.

Mark rolled onto his back. “Yeah, what's up?”

“Hank's here.”

Mark tried to lift his head. “Huh?”

.

.

.

Hank looked over Kim Hayes' shoulder. He could see Mark lying in a tangled mess of blankets in the middle of the bed, the room lit only with a night light.

“You up for a visitor, kid?” Hank asked quietly. “I can go if you're not.”

“Yeah.” Mark rubbed his face. “It's cool. Come on in.”

Hank smiled at Kim and brushed past her into the room. Mark threw an arm over his eyes. “Why're you here?” He asked tiredly.

Hank found a chair next to Mark's bed and sat down. “Thought you might be going stir-crazy,” he said. “Maybe you could use a little company.”

Mark dropped his arm back to the mattress, eyes still closed. His hair was mussed and Hank guessed Mark hadn't been in the same zip code as a razor for at least 72 hours. “I don't think I'm really great company right now.”

“That's OK,” Hank said. “How you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Mark opened his eyes and sent Hank a semi-guilty look. “Sorry.”

Hank smiled, touched and amused by Mark's consideration. “I stopped blinking at four-letter words a long time ago. How's your head?"

Mark turned onto his side, facing Hank but not looking at him. “Hurts. Not as bad as it did.”

“How's the rest of you?”

“Been better. I heard Vlad got suspended.”

Hank nodded. “Five games.”

The two sat in silence for a minute before Mark asked, “Have you ever had a concussion, Hank?”

“Broke my skull once,” Hank answered.

Mark's blue eyes widened and he looked at Hank. “For real?”

Hank nodded. “Yeah.”

“How...?”

“We were in Buffalo,” Hank started. “I was fighting with someone, lost my helmet....my feet went out from under me and I went down on the ice.

“I couldn't leave the hospital for three days, I could barely do anything for two months. I couldn't even be there when Katie had Nate. I missed the rest of the season and part of the next. They thought I'd never play again.”

“But you did.” Hank didn't miss the fearful tremor in Mark's voice.

Hank nodded once. “I did.”

Mark drew the covers closer around himself and closed his eyes, weariness creasing his face.

_He's just a kid,_ Hank thought. Turning 20 just before the season started, Mark was barely two years older than Hank's daughter. The idea of Donna alone and injured on the other side of the continent made Hank's heart ache.

“I know this sucks, Mark,” Hank murmured, reaching out to rub Mark's arm. “I know it hurts, and I know you're scared. But you will get better. This won't last forever.”

.

.

.

Mark burrowed deeper into the bed and tried to ignore the burning in his eyes. The last thing he knew before falling asleep was Hank's hand falling away and quiet footfalls as the team captain left the room.

.

.

.

Kim Hayes sat in her living room, thumbing through a magazine and honestly grateful to have a break from looking after her concussed nephew. Kim had been divorced for ten years, and her marriage had gone south long before children could come into the picture. While Mark served as something of an outlet for her pent-up maternal energy, Kim lately felt like she was caring for an infant—a 6-foot-tall, almost 200-pound infant. She looked up from her magazine as Hank Sheridan descended the stairs. “He went to sleep,” Hank informed.

Kim smiled. She'd heard good things about the Raptors' captain, and it was nice to see he lived up to them. “Thanks for coming.” She stood from the couch. “Mark hasn't done much but sleep and eat since he got back...more sleeping than eating. It was probably good for him to see a face besides mine.”

Hank shoved his hands into his shorts pockets. “Head injuries can be nasty things.”

Kim got the feeling Hank was speaking from brutal personal experience—his own, someone else's or a combination thereof.

“I wish Pam—my sister, Mark's mom—could be here,” Kim said. “There's only so much an aunt can do. Honestly, he barely even knows me. I only met him a few time before he came out here.”

Hank's brow furrowed. “Why can't his mom be here?”

“Can't afford the airfare,” Kim explained.

Hank nodded slowly, a thoughtful look in his eye.

.

.

.

Once upon a time, Katie Morrell Sheridan had been a hockey player. And a pretty good one. She hadn't played since college and six babies had changed her body, but anyone who looked at her could tell that she'd once been able to pass, shoot, and score with the best of them.

Hockey was how Katie met her husband. In her freshman year the University of Colorado men's team had played a prank on the women by purchasing three small turtles and numbering them 1, 2, and 4 and turning them loose in the girls' dressing room. Katie had been the only girl who thought it was funny. Hank had told her once that he didn't even know her name at that point, but he'd known he was going to marry her. They started dating shortly thereafter.

When Hank and Katie tied the knot the summer following their sophomore year, Katie had thought she was marrying a lawyer. As their junior year progressed, though, everyone from coaches to teammates to scouts had started suggesting to Hank that he give the NHL a shot. He'd flatly refused at first and resisted until that December. One day he'd come home from class and told Katie that the main reason he'd resisted the NHL was that he didn't want to put Katie and the children they didn't have yet in the public eye. Katie had been floored, thinking he'd thought it was wrong to get paid millions of dollars to play a kid's game. She still remembered his response: _“I love that you think I'm that noble. No. I'd love millions of dollars to play hockey. It's about you and our hypothetical children.”_

Katie had put her book down and admitted to her husband that she couldn't see him doing anything but playing hockey. Why not? She couldn't explain. But she had seen the influence Hank had over the Buffaloes on and off the ice and knew any NHL team would benefit from it. And in her professional opinion, he was an all right player too. If God wanted Hank to play in the NHL, Katie was quite confident God would also give her and the hypothetical children the grace to handle it.

20 years later, Katie could say with full conviction that God had given her and all six of those hypothetical children all the grace they needed and then some. Starting when Hank's rookie season got cut short due to a lockout. Hank had started off his career with the Raptors' AHL affiliate in Tacoma and gotten tapped to the big club when the lockout ended in January 1995. In retrospect, Katie thought that might have been a blessing. Donna had been born just a few days before the season would have started.

4:00 on a Thursday afternoon saw Katie doing what she had done very skilfully for the last 18 years: changing diapers. Over nearly two decades she could change diapers as efficiently as a Marine could clean a rifle.

Katie tossed her family's latest landfill contribution into the trash, adjusted her dark blond hair in its ponytail, buttoned up Daniel's onesie, and settled the six-week-old into her shoulder. Daniel squirmed and gurgled.

“Right back at you, dude,” Katie pushed open the door from the master bedroom just as a loud _woof_ from Gretzky announced that the man of the house was home from practice.

“Hey, Gretzky,” Hank greeted the pooch, who now had adult dog size with puppy energy. “Sit, buddy. Can you sit?”

The German shepherd obeyed, tail still twitching in anticipation.

“Good boy.” Hank scratched Gretzky behind the ears.

“Hi Dad!” Nate and Timmy called in unison from the couch where they were playing a video game.

“Hi, boys,” Hank called back.

“Hi, honey.” Katie walked into the kitchen and gave her husband a kiss.

“Hi.” Hank leaned around Katie's back. “Hey, squirt,” he said to Daniel. “Wanna come see Daddy?”

Katie let Hank lift the baby off her chest. “Did you go see Mark?” She asked.

“Yup.”

“How is he?” Katie set to doing the dishes.

“Hey, that's Ashley's job,” Hank said. “Stop.”

“She's taking a test,” Katie responded. The Sheridan children were all homeschooled.

“At four in the afternoon?”

Katie shrugged. Hank didn't understand how difficult it was to keep four children on a homeschooling schedule while taking care of a toddler and an infant. As long as school got finished sometime between sunup and sundown, Katie considered it a victory.

“Well, then they'll wait till she's done,” Hank insisted. “I've said it before; I don't want you doing the kids' chores.”

Katie leaned against the counter. She'd had this argument with her husband before and they would never agree. “How's Mark?” She repeated.

“About like I was when I had that skull fracture.”

“That bad?”

Hank shrugged. “You know: Sleepy, in a lot of pain, and...well, he's down.”

Katie nodded. She remembered Hank's skull fracture all too well. She had been nine months pregnant with Nate at the time, and Hank ended up so incapacitated that he couldn't even be in the delivery room when the third Sheridan was born. For the first two months of Nate's life Katie had slept with him in the spare bedroom (now Nate and Timmy's room) because Hank couldn't handle Nate's crying. Hank barely even saw his son until Nate was about 12 weeks old and for months afterward suffered debilitating headaches and dizzy spells. Katie had spent hours upon hours praying for God to let her have her husband back.

“I've got something to run by you,” Hank said.

“What?”

Hank shifted Daniel higher on his shoulder. “Kim, Mark's aunt, said it would be good for him if his mom could be here. I guess she can't afford the ticket.”

“And you want to pay for it,” Katie finished.

“How did you know?”

“We've been married how long?” Katie asked rhetorically. Hank was famous for doing things like this. Well, famous among those who knew. He made every effort to ensure as few people knew as possible. “Do it.”

“You're sure?”

“Call that woman right now and tell her you want to fly her to Seattle,” Katie ordered.

Hank stood up, handed Daniel back to Katie and kissed her cheek. “I love you. But I think I'll wait a little bit. Nova Scotia's four hours behind us.”

Katie smiled and watched him go, wondering why God had chosen to bless her with the most selfless man on the planet.

.

.

.

Pam Shearer hadn't even kicked off her shoes when her phone rang. With a sigh, she dug the phone out of her purse. The screen showed an unknown caller from Seattle, Washington.

Pam answered. “Hello?” She tried to take her jacket off.

“ _Hi, could I speak to Pam Shearer?”_ An unfamiliar male voice said.

“Speaking,” Pam answered. Without much thought, she shook off her jacket and let it fall to the floor.

“ _Oh, hi, Pam. This is Hank Sheridan.”_ There was a pause. _“From the Raptors.”_

“Hi,” Pam greeted. She'd heard about Hank, but never met or spoken to him. “What...uh, what can I do for you?” She kicked her shoes to a corner and went to the kitchen table.

“ _I went to see Mark today,”_ Hank said. _“Kim told me...she said you didn't have the money to fly out here and see him.”_

“Yes, that's right,” Pam confirmed sadly, sitting down at the table as her husband came in. Even the cheaper flights had been outside a Shearer budget.

Pam's husband, Dennis, entered the kitchen and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“ _My wife and I would like to take care of that for you.”_

Pam was shocked. “I...what? No, I can't...That's very generous, but--”

“ _Pam,”_ Hank implored. _“Mark needs you._

Pam glanced up at Dennis, who was giving her a quizzical look. _“Who's on the phone?”_ He mouthed. Pam held up a finger to silence him.

“Let me...” Pam searched for the words. “Let me talk to my husband. Can I call you back in half an hour or so?”

“ _Sure.”_

“Thanks.” Pam hung up (an odd expression, she thought, since nobody really hung a phone on a cradle anymore) and looked at her husband.

“You need half an hour to talk to me? Must be important,” Dennis said.

“That was Hank Sheridan, from the Raptors,” Pam said. “He wants to...he wants to pay for me to fly to Seattle and stay with Mark for while.”

“Sounds great,” Dennis said. “What's the holdup?”

“We can't accept that, Dennis!” Pam exclaimed.

“Why not?”

Pam sighed in frustration. Her husband could be hopelessly dense sometimes. “Because it's just too much!”

“Pam.” Dennis stepped forward and took her hands. “Mark needs you.”

Pam looked at the floor. “Hank said that.”

“Sounds like a smart guy, this Hank,” Dennis quipped. “Listen, Pam: I know how you feel about charity, but take this offer. Please.”

Pam looked up at Dennis. “What about you?”

“I'll stay here and hold the fort for however long you're gone,” Dennis answered. “Please, sweetheart. Mark needs this, and you know you want to be there.”

“What about work?”

“You've been at the hospital since before Mark was born. You think they're going to not let you take some time off to be with your son who's got a concussion? You must be up to your ears in use-it-or-lose-it leave.”

With a sigh, Pam gave in. Dennis was right. She did want to be there; imagining her  
youngest child all alone and in pain was killing her. “I'll call Hank.”

.

.

.

“Mark?”

_I really am losing it. That sounds like Mom._ Mark stirred from his half-unconscious state. What time was it, anyway? Had to be close to midnight.

“Are you awake, honey?” The voice came closer.

Mark opened his eyes. In the nightlight, he could see his mother standing at the foot of his bed the way she did when he was sick as a kid and she would come in to check on him.

“Mom?” Mark sat up and turned on the bedside lamp, ignoring the flash of pain behind his eyes as light filled the room. “How did you...?”

His mother sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around him. “A miracle,” was all she said. “Oh, Mark. It's so good to see you, sweetheart.”

“How long...?”

“Two weeks.”

Mark hugged his mother back and buried his face in her shoulder. He didn't care how she'd gotten here or how long she would stay. He felt better than he had since the concussion.


End file.
